Sources of Help to Members of COVID-19 Support Groups

These resources are for support groups in which members are supporting each other to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. A toolkit for starting and facilitating the groups is at Start a Virtual Support Group to Help With Stresses of COVID-19

Consider These Resources for Yourself and Others

Resources to Help Your Group Members

There are many free, online articles about topics that are helpful to members of a support group. See the “Supporting Skills” listed on the right side of each page.

Resources to Help Yourself

• Attitude (Managing Your)
• Burnout
• Motivating Yourself
• Self-Assessments
• Self-Awareness
• Time and Stress Management

Resources to Help Others Anywhere

• 6 Ways to Help Others During the Coronavirus Outbreak
• 9 Ways to Help Others During the Coronavirus Pandemic
• 10 Ways to Help Others During the Coronavirus Outbreak
• 16 Heartwarming Ways Everyday Heroes Are Helping People Affected by Coronavirus

Pose Questions in the Our Facebook Group

This group is for everyone interested or involved in peer support groups, especially around COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on our lives. We will discuss all aspects of organizing and running a peer support group. Discussions will have an emphasis on groups using free tools offered at https://StartSupportGroups.com/, but do not have to be exclusively about that format of peer support group. (Note: this group is not about specific medical advice and treatment for individuals who may have the virus.)

• Pandemic Peer Support Groups

Attend Office Hours With Experts

Office hours are each week on Wednesdays from noon to 1 p.m. Central Time USA. They will begin on April 15, 2020. To participate, you must:

1. Have answered at least 80% of the questions correctly in the quiz Test Your Knowledge About PCGs, because the office hours should primarily be about questions that are not answered in these pages.
2. Pre-register by sending email to peersupport@StartSupportGroups.com. Send your email from the same email address that you used when you entered your private contact information in your quiz. In your email, also include your Skype address if you have one.

Office hours will include the first 10 people who registered. We will promptly notify you if you are enrolled in the next office hour’s session.

Email Us

We hope that you will consider the other sources of help, especially the Frequently Asked Questions, as we tend to get a lot of emails about various subjects. Otherwise, you can email us at peersupport@StartSupportGroups.com.

Regarding Other Uses of Peer Coaching Groups

People who are interested in using the groups for other than support as described in this topic, should purchase training, consulting and materials from Action Learning Source, especially the virtual workshop
Facilitating and Developing Peer, Group, Team and Organizational Coaching Programs. Other uses of peer coaching groups might include, for example:

• Developing a group-based program for your professional development or employee development in an organization.
• Modifying the process for developing, for example, a coaching culture, coaching skills, leadership development, management development, supervisory development, networking, problem solving / goal achievement, support groups, team building and transfer of training. Each of these different uses involved a different design of a group-based program.

(First photo courtesy of Matheus Viana and second photo courtesy of Edward Jenner on Pexels.com)